


Stardust

by ebi_pers



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: Drabble, Dubious Science, F/M, One Shot, Seriously there is no plot to this at all, This is literally all fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23954518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebi_pers/pseuds/ebi_pers
Summary: "Every atom that makes up her body once made up something else. Isn’t it possible, even likely, that they share a history somewhere along the line? And if that’s the case, wouldn’t those atoms remember? Wouldn’t they want to be together again?"Or, Ricky takes some liberties with science in order to teach Nini about atoms.
Relationships: Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts
Comments: 11
Kudos: 87





	Stardust

**Author's Note:**

> I've been in a very one-shot mood suddenly, and I don't know why. This is literally all fluff, and I don't know quite where it came from, but I love these two. Once again, this is set in-universe, an indeterminate amount of time after Ricky and Nini get back together in the season 1 finale. 
> 
> Full disclosure, I almost failed chemistry in high school and I know next-to-nothing about atoms, so I claim full responsibility for any inaccuracies but I don't apologize. Also, fair warning that there is literally like no plot at all to this. It's just romance, dubious science, and bad philosophy. Enjoy!

“Ricky,” Nini sighs gently, turning away from her desk to stare pointedly at her boyfriend. He lies on his back, knees drawn up and guitar draped across his abdomen as he picks aimlessly at the strings. His gaze doesn’t leave the ceiling. 

“Hmm?” he picks his head up to look at her, his curls lopsided where he’d been lying on them. The guitar slides off his stomach and comes to rest on its headstock. 

She tries and fails to bite back a grin. “I thought we were supposed to be doing homework,” she says.

“I am,” he shrugs, his playful smirk matching hers as he rises to a sitting position. “Just taking a break.” 

“You’ve been taking a break for the last half hour.” Nini shakes her head, half-amused, half-jealous. Ricky’s always been this way. Study for fifteen minutes, break for thirty. And yet, magically, he’s always managed to maintain (and be content with) a solid B average while she’s had to fight tooth and nail for her 4.0 GPA. She’s glad some things haven’t changed in the time they broke up and got back together. 

“Well I finished the reading for Lee’s class,” he says, holding up his copy of  _ The Bell Jar.  _ He taps the multi-colored checks on the cover proudly.

Nini pinches the bridge of her nose and dips her head to hide her fond smile. Mr. Lee’s Honors English is one of the few classes they have together (Ricky Bowen and honors classes typically don’t mix). The reading was assigned a week ago. Of course, she’d finished it (and most of the book) in one night and, of course, Ricky had waited until the last minute.

“Great,” she says brightly, rotating her chair to face her desk once more. She picks up her pencil and begins to chew on the end absent-mindedly as she pores over the chemistry book lying open before her. Ricky picks his guitar back up and continues to pluck tabs to a song she doesn’t recognize. He may very well be making it up as he goes. 

The letters and numbers and symbols in the textbook start to blur together after a few minutes, forming long, black lines that mean even less than when they were legible. She feels herself going cross-eyed. Finally, with an exasperated sigh, she snaps the textbook shut and resolves to find Dr. Kaur before school and ask her for help. 

Ricky perks up from across the room. “All done?” 

“Nope. Just taking a study break,” she parrots.

The corner of his mouth curves upwards and he opens his arms. “Join me?” he asks hopefully. He looks positively boyish in that moment: messy brown hair, dark eyes wide and pleading, his blue-and-white baseball t-shirt wrinkled where the guitar rested. Nini can’t deny him anything when he looks at her like that, and it’s all she can do not to leap off the chair and throw herself at him. 

Ricky folds her up in his arms, rocking her as he eases them into a reclining position against the myriad of pillows that line her headboard. “I missed you,” he murmurs against her, his breath warm against the crook of her neck. 

“I was literally five feet away from you,” she giggles. 

“Too far,” he replies, lips brushing against her cheek. 

She settles against him, feeling the undulation of his breathing against her back. She’d forgotten how warm Ricky could be. At least once a year when they were young, a teacher would send him to the nurse, positive that he was running a temperature, only to find that no. Ricky Bowen was just hot-blooded. He’s a space-heater, and she’s never understood just how his lanky body could possibly radiate so much warmth. 

For a moment, her eyelids flutter shut and she realizes just how much she’s missed  _ this _ .The way Ricky’s warmth floods her bones. The companionable silence. The sound of his gentle inhales and exhales breezing gently past her ear. The way her mattress molds to the shape of the two of them. 

“What were you working on?” he asks finally. 

She makes a face. “Chemistry. But I’m giving up. It makes no sense. I’m just gonna ask Dr. Kaur in the morning. Maybe she’ll go easy on me and give me half credit.” 

“I’m not doing too bad in chem,” Ricky says brightly. “Maybe I can help?”

Her first instinct is to decline. While he may be doing well in chemistry, he’s also not in honors, and she knows for a fact that Dr. Kaur is far more lenient when it comes to the general classes. 

“What chapter are you on?” he asks, shifting the two of them so that he can see her better. She rests her head against his shoulder and watches as his eyes sweep over her, his dark lashes nearly obscuring his irises from view. 

“We’re talking about atoms,” she says. From the look on his face, she can tell his class hasn’t gotten to that chapter yet. 

A slow, sly smile works its way across Ricky’s lips. “Well, I happen to know a thing or two about atoms.” 

She raises an eyebrow incredulously. “Oh, do you?” 

“I do,” he confirms. 

She places her hand on his chest and lets it stay there, the thumping of his heart rhythmic and steady. “Enlighten me,” she says. “What do you know about atoms?”

Ricky smiles gamely, tightening his grip around her waist. “I know that atoms,” he says, “are the building blocks of everything.” 

Nini smirks and wonders which episode of  _ The Magic School Bus  _ he got that line from. She huddles closer to him and feels the tremor of each word reverberate from his throat down to his ribcage and into her ear. It feels like he’s telling her a bedtime story.

“I know they make up literally everything in the universe, even you and me, and that they don’t die. They just rearrange themselves into something new. It’s like an endless recycling process. And you know what else?” he leans down, leveling his gaze with her and she gets the sense that whatever he’s about to say is very important, even if it has nothing to do with her chemistry homework. 

“What?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper for fear of shattering the quiet that has fallen over the room. The air feels thick and soft and warm, like they are draped in a blanket.

“If atoms are the building blocks of everything, and if we are just recycled atoms, then it means that once upon a time we were oceans. We were trees. We were mountains. We were  _ stars _ .”

He says it with such wonder and such awe that she can see it. The history of her body and his. The depths of the oceans now reflected in their eyes. The towering trees now embedded in their bones. The mountains and valleys that rise and fall and fold themselves into the creases by her eyes when she laughs, the dimple that forms in Ricky’s cheek when he’s grinning at her. The stars that streaked across the sky and molded themselves into his smile, into her voice when she sings, his fingers when they strum across his guitar.

In fourth grade, they had taken a class trip to the planetarium. She’d sat on the bus beside Ricky and across the aisle from Kourtney and Big Red. He’d forgotten his lunch that day and she’d shared half her peanut butter and jelly sandwich with him. They’d gone to an iMax show - a grand tour of the Milky Way - and when the lights dimmed, she’d reached across to hold his hand, sticky with jelly, because she hated the dark. In that dome, with the stars projected above them, she’d realized that the night sky was three-dimensional. It had  _ depth _ . She could see the distance between each star. 

Turning to Ricky, she’s more certain than ever that he was once a star. Perhaps that’s why he’s always so warm. And looking down at her own arm, she thinks she can see a glimpse of stardust coursing through her veins, too. 

“It’s kind of a miracle,” she says, and when she glances up again, she finds that he’s regarding her with wide eyes, mouth slightly agape. It’s enough to send a shock of heat from the base of her neck to the tips of her ears. “Of all the things these atoms could’ve chosen to arrange themselves into, they chose us. Do you think our atoms know each other?” she asks, half-jokingly. “Like a long time ago, we were both part of the same thing?” 

“I know it,” he says with conviction, as if he’s never been more sure of anything in his life. “Whatever star you came from, Neens, I know I came from the same one. Whatever ocean you belonged to, I also belonged to.”

“How do you know?”

“I can just feel it.” 

She turns it over in her mind and nods. Perhaps he’s right. Every atom that makes up her body once made up something else. Isn’t it possible, even likely, that they share a history somewhere along the line? And if that’s the case, wouldn’t those atoms remember? Wouldn’t they want to be together again? 

There’s no rhyme or reason for why she found herself drawn to Richard Bowen in kindergarten. There’s no science that can explain what possessed her to approach the boy with a gap in his teeth and unruly brown hair and Dorito dust coating all ten fingers. There’s no logic to why, after he microwaved her Barbie Doll, she continued to want to be his friend. And for as long as they’ve been friends, she remembers the physicality of it. The innocent hand-holding, the way Ricky always insisted on hugging her instead of just tagging her on the playground, the endless amount of pinky promises made, and every kiss that’s ever taken place between them. That connection - that desire to be near each other - has always existed. She’s never felt more whole than when she’s with Ricky, and that’s how she knows that whatever he’s made of, she’s made of the same thing. She can just feel it.

Nini presses herself against him and feels the atoms within her start to heat up, as if they are trying to fuse themselves with Ricky’s. She traces her finger along his chest and smirks to herself when he shivers, goosebumps rising along his arms. She glances over at her desk and the thick chemistry book that lies shut. Suddenly, it all seems so beside the point. How can math and electrons and neutrons ever compare to the romance of it all? 

“That was very romantic,” she tells him, her voice a quiet murmur in his ear. “But I don’t think those are the answers the book is looking for.” 

He shrugs. “I said I know a thing or two about atoms. I didn’t say any of it would be useful for your homework!” 

“You’re right,” Nini concedes. “What else do you know about chemistry?” She arches an eyebrow suggestively. 

Ricky chuckles and leans in, his lips a breath away from hers. “I might know a couple more things,” he says, closing the distance between them. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually inspired by a conversation I had with a friend recently. We were talking about love and atoms and philosophy and life, and it all sort of got me thinking. Also, a HUGE shoutout to alovelylilt and her fic "all that you are is all that i'll ever need." That story changed my LIFE, and it got me thinking more about love, which is also a big part of what inspired this story.
> 
> Anyway, thought we could all use a little fluffiness in our lives right about now. Tell me what you think! A new chapter of "Do You Hear The People Sing" should be out soon, too. Just putting the finishing touches on it!


End file.
